Have motor insurance prices really fallen in 2025?

SiliconChip

The MSE "How to get cheap car insurance" page claims that prices have fallen 16% year on year and 23% since January? Is this really a true picture? My own experience suggests not, and I wondered what others have found.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insurance/car-insurance/how-to-get-cheap-car-insurance/

My renewal is due in 27 days time, the renewal premium asked for is 14% higher than I paid last year (although I did get last year's premium reduced by over £100 so I am hopeful that I can get a reduction this year too). The only comparison site premiums that are lower than the amount I paid last year are 2 that don't include windscreen cover (something I've never seen before), all the quotes that are comparable to my current cover are higher than last year's premium, and only a few are lower than my renewal quote. The only changes in my circumstances from last year are that I'm a year older (67 rather than 66) and I've got an extra year NCD, although as I'm already at 9+ most sites don't allow that to be entered anyway.

molerat

My renewal in June was 6% higher but matched fairly closely with what I found elsewhere.  I saved over £100 last year by changing insurer, both were around the same this year.

aussie_in_wales

My experience is that they have. My insurance was £315 last year and after shopping around I have just got a new policy for £210. I have over 16 years NCD. Same level of cover and no changes from last year.

Chieveley

Pensioner here, my renewal last week down from £171 to £148. Could have saved a further £12 by changing providers.

mark_cycling00

It's a badly worded article as it should make it very clear that the reduction is an average and may not apply to everyone. Mine is down from £330 to £220. 

The research seems sound though. The company obtains 20 million insurance quotes each month for it's research. It doesn't have much to gain from a shock but inaccurate study to get publicity because it sells pricing software to businesses. Businesses buying the software want accuracy.

singhini

My auto renewal was £8 cheaper than last year (which was 4% £190 versus £198 last year)

Having read similar posts on this forum about car insurance being 16% cheaper i rang up and said don't renew i can get it cheaper. They then re-ran a new quote and it was £30 cheaper than last year (15% £168 versus £198)

MyRealNameToo

SiliconChip said:

The MSE "How to get cheap car insurance" page claims that prices have fallen 16% year on year and 23% since January? Is this really a true picture? My own experience suggests not, and I wondered what others have found.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insurance/car-insurance/how-to-get-cheap-car-insurance/

My renewal is due in 27 days time, the renewal premium asked for is 14% higher than I paid last year (although I did get last year's premium reduced by over £100 so I am hopeful that I can get a reduction this year too). The only comparison site premiums that are lower than the amount I paid last year are 2 that don't include windscreen cover (something I've never seen before), all the quotes that are comparable to my current cover are higher than last year's premium, and only a few are lower than my renewal quote. The only changes in my circumstances from last year are that I'm a year older (67 rather than 66) and I've got an extra year NCD, although as I'm already at 9+ most sites don't allow that to be entered anyway.

It's inevitably on average, and your own experience is evidence of that because most people saw significant increases last year whereas you saw a reduction.  

mark_cycling00 said:

It's a badly worded article as it should make it very clear that the reduction is an average and may not apply to everyone. Mine is down from £330 to £220. 

The research seems sound though. The company obtains 20 million insurance quotes each month for its  research. It doesn't have much to gain from a shock but inaccurate study to get publicity because it sells pricing software to businesses. Businesses buying the software want accuracy.

I think its obvious enough that its an average, dont think anyone believes that everyone pays the same price for car insurance and therefore the probability of the 100+ sellers of car insurance all reducing their prices uniformly for every single customer would seem less likely that a monkey playing with a typewriter to accidentally bash out the complete works of Shakespeare. 


What software does who sell? Pearson Ham are a consultancy, you'd imagine MSE's parent company of MoneySupermarket gave them the data from their aggregator to do the analysis. None of the three sell software that I know of. 

SiliconChip

MyRealNameToo said:

SiliconChip said:

The MSE "How to get cheap car insurance" page claims that prices have fallen 16% year on year and 23% since January? Is this really a true picture? My own experience suggests not, and I wondered what others have found.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insurance/car-insurance/how-to-get-cheap-car-insurance/

My renewal is due in 27 days time, the renewal premium asked for is 14% higher than I paid last year (although I did get last year's premium reduced by over £100 so I am hopeful that I can get a reduction this year too). The only comparison site premiums that are lower than the amount I paid last year are 2 that don't include windscreen cover (something I've never seen before), all the quotes that are comparable to my current cover are higher than last year's premium, and only a few are lower than my renewal quote. The only changes in my circumstances from last year are that I'm a year older (67 rather than 66) and I've got an extra year NCD, although as I'm already at 9+ most sites don't allow that to be entered anyway.

It's inevitably on average, and your own experience is evidence of that because most people saw significant increases last year whereas you saw a reduction.  

I didn't phrase my post very well, the renewal quote I got last year was indeed an increase on the previous year, but I rang the insurer up and got the premium reduced by over £100, I didn't even have to try very hard, so I'm hoping for a similar result this year. 

What I'm not seeing is any reduction this time on the comparison sites. Given that others are seeing reductions I suspect my postcode may be the issue, there have been quite a few car thefts in the area, including one from the drive of the house over the road (recovered by the owner because he happened to have an AirTag in his toolbag in the vehicle!) so it may have become a higher risk area. 

MyRealNameToo

So something about you, your car, your area etc has triggered those at the cheaper end of the market to push quotes up... technically may be nothing to do with you but they were previously on a market share drive so selling too cheaply intentionally and have changed that strategy now. 

Could be thefts in your area but can also be nothing to do with you but you share characteristics. When Citroen introduced free insurance on the Saxo insurance prices went way up on the car. It's nothing the middle aged woman with a clean record did but so many young drivers had them that the poor claims experience spilled over to anyone else who had one. Hence when we were looking to buy a brand new car and had short listed a Mini Cooper S or a SL500 the later was the cheaper to insure despite being 3x the price and vastly more performance. 

I noted this year that all the other firms that gave me quotes for Home insurance have all gone down notably but our insurance is with M&S and they'd gone up 20% but were still cheaper than anyone else. 

SiliconChip

Just to finish this off, I rang my current insurer (Halifax) today but this year they were unable to improve their renewal price (£598). So i reviewed the comparison site offers and went for a close equivalent policy with RAC through Money Supermarket at £544, so although that's still £20 more than last year it's £54 less than the renewal quote.